


shadows and monsters (the house was awake)

by mildlyobsessive



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Creepy, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Maybe - Freeform, Triggers, ish, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6510424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlyobsessive/pseuds/mildlyobsessive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a house in Josh's neighborhood that is empty, will always be empty, because the carpet chased them all out, taunted and pointed and whispered aeonian promises of Christmas photos with an eternally bare space and one too many chairs at the table.  Where they shuffled out shaking, because what else is there to do when your own son's haunting you?</p><p>What can you possibly do to make his memory stop following you but to run?</p>
            </blockquote>





	shadows and monsters (the house was awake)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Control by Halsey
> 
>  
> 
> Possible trigger warnings on blood and referenced suicide so please please please dont read if it will trigger you

There is a house in Josh's neighborhood where bloodstains have tattooed themselves into the carpet, where no amount of bleach could rid the floors of copper and desperation. 

There is a house in Josh's neighborhood that is empty, will always be empty, because the carpet chased them all out, taunted and pointed and whispered aeonian promises of Christmas photos with an eternally bare space and one too many chairs at the table. Where they shuffled out shaking, because what else is there to do when your own son's haunting you?

What can you possibly do to make his memory stop following you but to run?

There is a house in Josh's neighborhood that the kids at school whisper about when they think no one is listening. 

"Ten bucks you can't spend the night without losing it and blowing your brains out like _he_ did."

It's a coming-of-age ceremony, a test of sorts; being stronger than that dead boy was. Proving that you can face the Joseph boy in death when he couldn't even face his own life.

There is a house in Josh's neighborhood where something horrible happened, and he knows his, so why is he standing on the doorstep? Why is he here?

The door's locked, windows covered in dust. It's been a while since the Josephs lived there. Josh doesn't think he blames them for leaving. New family, new house. One less child, one less place for the memories to stew.

Josh shoves the door once, twice, three times. It doesn't budge, unsurprisingly. He doesn't know why he bothered in the first place.

He turns away, eyes focused on the cracked cement sidewalk, the weeds strangling bushes for dominance over the flower beds. A suburban civil war. 

_click_

Josh whips his head around. The door's unlocked swaying back in forth in the chill breeze filtering through. "What the fuck?"

Now, Josh has seen his fair share of horror movies. He knows that when shit like this happens, he's supposed to turn the hell around and run. But Josh is also a fucking idiot, so he pushes open the door, wincing at the rasping noise of hinges deprived of oil.

The house is caked in dust, the sun catching the specks in just the right way as to send a parasitic rainbow cascading around the bare foyer. The air is a stagnant swamp; hot and sticky in a way that drives home how thoroughly empty the place is. Empty, that is, save for Josh.

Josh props open the door and takes a step inside. The floorboards squeak their disdain at the intrusion, buckle is if they're trying to keep themselves as far as possible from the stranger in their midst.

He takes in the entry way, the dead house plants decomposing in the corners. The old family hadn't taken much before they left. Josh supposes they were in a bit of a hurry. No time to wait for a U-Haul. And so the plants were abandoned, left to die alongside the memory of their taboo son.

Josh walks quietly through the foyer and into the adjoining hallway. There are old family photos scattered along the walls like burned out stars in the sky, dull and forgotten. He scans one, a snapshot of a grinning family on a beach. Both parents are laughing, mouths wide open like they forgot that their picture was being taken. Two of the sons seem to be horsing around, clearly impatient, while the one daughter rolled her eyes. And then there he was, staring straight at the camera with the widest smile of all. Tyler. The one who marked the carpet as his own personal memorial, the one that chased them all out. The one that had brought Josh here.

Josh forced his gaze from the photo before backing away, hurrying through the hallway and into what had to have once been the living room. It's as barren as the rest of the house, tattered furniture littered with soda cans and cigarette butts from the various array of squatters and daredevils who had spent time here. It's rude, Josh thinks. How highly does one have to think of themself to decide that it's okay to deface what may as well be a boy's tomb?

But, then again, he's here, isn't he? So what does he know?

Josh is so caught up in his own justifications that he almost steps right into it. 

The carpet. Once eggshell white, now tinged the color of death, reddish-brown rooted so deep in the rug that Josh can see each rivulet where it trickled, where it dried around him. And, suddenly, Josh can see him there, Tyler Joseph, they name that no one will say anymore, curled up into the carpet, his own blood curled around him as if to rock him into nothingness, the whir of a bullet singing him a final lullabye. 

And Josh pukes, stomach emptying itself right onto a crime scene, onto his neighbor's final resting place. It's too much, he decides, way too much. This, coming here, had been a mistake. 

And so he runs, feet sending the floorboards screaming, the carpet laughing at him as he sprints through the hallway, ignoring the now-nonexistent family framed on the walls, and he's yanking at the door knob but it won't open, it won't, and he _has_ to get out of here right now but-

"Please don't leave."

And Josh freezes.


End file.
